Okay, basically, what I want to do is this.

In a function, I give as argument the PresetName of an Actor (any kind, from AHumans, to ACrabs, to ACRockets). Then, I use the corresponding "CreateActor(x)" method to create it, but the problem is identifying what kind of actor it is. For example, if I type in "Ronin Soldier", I'll want to use the method "CreateAHuman("Ronin Soldier")" since using the other ones will return the error:

(In this case, CreateActor("Ronin Soldier") was used)

Now, there are many ways to solve the problem:

-Adding an extra argument with the type of the actor. Simplest solution, but it takes away big part of the simplicity and user-friendliness.

-Creating multiple functions, one for each kind of actor. Another simple solution, and wouldn't take away big part of the simplicity and user-friendliness, but to be honest, I dislike the idea of having multiple functions to do the same thing that only one function could do.

-Error handling. I googled error handling in Lua, but I think it's not possible to catch the error given by the CreateActor(), since the error is "already catched" (i.e., printed in console), though I'm not really sure. Still, handling the error would be a bit more complicated, because what I'd do would be basically catching the error, try with the next CreateActor() method, see if it works, if not, catch the error again, and repeat the process 'till it works. But then the code would be quite messy trying to catch errors on my catched errors. (There's probably easier ways of doing this, but when it comes to Lua I'm pretty illiterate).

-Universal "CreateActor()" function (CreateAnyActor() or w/e, bad at names). For this, I'd basically need to search through all the modules until I get the PresetName given as an argument, then, determine what actor class is it, and after doing so, use the corresponding method. This would be the best solution, specially because it would also allow me to make the function "CreateAnything()", allowing to for example, not limit the function only to Actors, but making it able to create HeldDevices, ThrownDevices, and any kind of MO, really.


So, to begin with, I'd like to know, is it remotely possible to do my last idea? Can I access the information in the modules, looking for some specific data? Or is it completely impossible? If not impossible, what do?

How possible is it to do the error handling thing? Or is it also a helpless idea?

Any other ideas to solve this problem?

Thanks for reading the wall of text

For the last solution, this might help. Or it might not, I don't remember what exactly it was used for haha.

As far as I know lua has no good try/catching since it's designed to work with a compiled language which would deal with errors. But I may be wrong, I've never really looked into it, google would probably help you there. Your best bet there might be to check the returned type and if it's nil move on to the next type of actor since CreateAetc. return whatever you created:


I'm honestly not sure this'd work though.

Oh gawd!

It worked! Ha! I thought facing errors stopped the execution of the script, but I guess I was wrong (or it doesn't work like that on the latest build).

Thanks for that !




Though it still prints the error on the console
Who cares, it works

This is what I use to get the module from an actor (all though it should work with firearms and otherstuff as well). I bet you could modify it to do what you want.



Edit: Eh, nvm I'm too late

Thanks for replying anyway! I might use that method in the future though, so it wasn't in vain

Haha yep, the errors don't actually stop anything, the update script will always get run so the worst case when you're trying to use the in a controlled way is that they make things take another frame. Also they look ugly. Fortunately the newest version has ConsoleMan:ClearConsole(I think there are no arguments) so if you mind it you can clean it

There is??

Ugh, the wiki should be updated more often.

Haha yeah, I really wish the wiki would be updated. I've had to find all the new stuff (that I've found) by guessing and looking through relevant base.rte code. There're even some nice things from older versions that it makes absolutely no mention of.

This page does have some or a lot of the new lua stuff, including ConsoleMan:Clear(). By the way, correction, it was this not ConsoleMan:ClearConsole() apparently: http://tradestar.datarealms.com/ccbuild30/

Oh wow, there seems to be a lot of changes, and not only about Lua!

This one is actually interesting:



Does that mean that we can have actual stealthy weapons/actors?

We need a better thread to discuss this

Haha yeah, we do need a better thread, maybe a general discussion on cool lua changes and stuff most people haven't heard of would be a good idea.
And yep, I believe it does, at least in terms of ai. Of course player controlled actors aren't alerted directly but presumably the player will hear or not hear the sound based on the loudness. Either way this does give some potentially awesome opportunities for genuinely silenced and stealthed weapons without resorting to all the kinda messy hitsbymos stuff like in darkstorm and most similar stealth stuff.

I like seeing new options open up to lua, the more useful stuff we can interact with the better. For example, the fact that we now have a completely unique ID to track absolutely any actor with (actor.UniqueID property I think it is) is wonderful in my books It makes so much parent checking and all sorts of categorization and validation so so much easier since you just need a number rather than a reference to the actor.

I was just testing the Loudness variable, it's truly a miracle. Set a handgun with Loudness = 0 to test, you can fire it just besides an opponent actor and it won't detect the shot, unless it's hit of course. Now, it'd be even more interesting if you could be able to apply it to JetPacks or AEmitters directly, that way you could have some real stealth units. I mean, you can do it nowadays making a fake jetpack with Lua, but oh well, you get the point

So, actor.UniqueID is differen't from actor.ID? I thought it was gonna be just like an upgrade of the .ID property Sounds nice!

Oh wow, that's awesome. Combine that with a bit of clever FOW stuff and you can have some really great stealth stuff without actually going invisible, nice!

Yeah, unique id is great, as the name suggests it's completely unique for every actor (maybe any MO, not sure how far back the property exists). So you can use it in place of an actor reference and avoid any invalid operator issues, or you can use it for parent checks and so on. It's just nice and all purpose.